UFO Sightings

I hope y'all had a great Labor Day weekend! I know I did!

As much as I had planned to do lots of house and yard work over the long weekend, the expected thunder storms and the jelly arms after trimming the (stupid) shrubs plus chores from my 2nd (school tax collector) and 3rd (LQS) jobs made me a lazy girl!

I did however declare Sunday and Monday as UFO days!!!

The first UFO completed on Sunday was my 2012 Quiltville Mystery Easy Street. I'm not sure why but I always seem to stall at the borders - and these were easy non-pieced borders. Either way the top is now done. I added the top to the "needs a pieced back" pile - I just wasn't into piecing a back at the time.

I also worked on another UFO yesterday. Again, I had stalled on the borders except this time I only had to add a 13" piece to 2 opposite corners. Must have taken me all of 20 minutes to finish...good grief.

I then pieced the back from the leftover fabrics, made the binding (lime green!), folded the larger chunks for the stash and trimmed the bits for the scrap/strip bins. I managed to clean out a drawer! It was such a good feeling. Now I just have to trim up a batting and this quilt will be sandwiched at our next Sandwich Club meeting in October.

Tomorrow I'll share the hexies I worked on and a new little project I treated myself to :^)

Retreat Report #4

I promise this is the last retreat report and it's kind of random leftovers at that...

In response to several comments yesterday hoping to see my Easy Street border fabrics:

The border colors are so rich that they should pick out the same colors
in the quilt center which kind of recede behind the lime green.



The retreat was held at Camp Asbury on Silver Lake, a whopping 3 or 4 miles from my house, but there were people from up to 50 miles away as well as an attendees friend from Florida - she had fun in the snow! My previous experience at Asbury had only been for 3 rescue calls - and 2 of those were for quilt retreats. Luckily we didn't need an ambulance during our retreat!

Another project I worked on was my 4" leader-ender baskets. I kitted up quite a few blocks before the retreat but 90% of what I was working on was kind of self-leader-endering (new word!!) so I didn't get many made during retreat. Instead, I have been trucking away at them since and now have 10 more blocks done for a total of 40. Once I figure out how to do the layout I want in EQ I can determine how many more I need to make. I hope it's a lot because I really enjoy making them...

Ok, you know I had to bring some hexies with me but I didn't make much progress...and I didn't even take a picture for you because it's the same ole hexagon puzzle project. Tomorrow is hexie night at my LQS so I should make some good progress. My goal is to have this project done by the end of March. Keep your fingers crossed.

Quilt Retreat Report #3

Not much to add here other than I seem to be posting projects in the reverse order I worked on them at retreat.

You may recall that I had this in 3 large sections so it didn't take much to get it to this stage.

You may also recall that I was debating  between pieced or plain borders. As much as I liked the pieced border, I am more likely to get this finished faster with plain borders and so it shall be.

Sadly I didn't think to take a picture of the border fabrics so you'll be pleasently surprised when you see my fab batik choices. I do hope I bought some extra cuz my next hexie project will be scrappy batiks!!

Design Wall Monday - 1/14/13

Just 2 more looooong seams and Easy Street will be in once piece!! WootWoot!!
And this time the quilt was checked out by not just one but TWO quality control officers.
I think they like it :)

Don't forget that this Thursday is HeLP for Hexie-aholics - get your projects, new and old, ready to share as there will be prizes!!!

Almost Wordless Wednesday

I've got this half sewn together and I am liking my border fabrics.
Quality Control Officer Midgie approves too!

Somehow I grossly undercut the number of green squares I need to finish so that will probably be tonight's project after I get home from our Board Meeting.

Easy Street assembly has begun!

I'm still working on making the blocks with 4 green squares but I had enough done to lay out half the quilt. This was the layout yesterday moning and I put Midgie in charge of protecting it while I went to work. She looks like she's serious about her duties.

And as I'm sure you guessed, I came home to quilt blocks all over the floor. I had placed a box in the middle of the blocks for Midge to sit in (what can I say? the girl has a box fetish) and that was 1 of only 5 blocks that wasn't moved. I assumed it was Squeaky that had done the rearranging since they had her signature twist but this morning I caught this:



Now I'm not sure who's to blame??!!

It doesn't matter as I have about half the layout in one piece - should have this half completed tonight! I don't think I have ever completed a mystery quilt this fast and it will be great to have a new quilt finished already in January. I didn't photograph them but I bought border fabrics over the weekend. I just hope they aren't too dark as this quilt reads very light to me.

PS - Don't forget the next hexie linky party is Thursday, 1/17/13! Get those projects ready and be ready for prizes!!! I was even able to secure an autographed book on my favorite topic!!!

PPS - this post was made after uploading pictures directly to my Picasa albums and then into the blog for anyone else who is having trouble with blogger this week...

Plodding along

I worked late last night so I didn't get much sewing done...it will probably be the same again tonight.
I have another Step 8 block almost done.

And I'm making good progress on my BathroomFloor quilt. I'll probably switch back to my pieced hexies project this weekend. Only 2 weeks until the next hexie linky party and I want to show off the pieced hexies. And since this HeLP will be on January 17th...there will be prizes so stay tuned!

Design Wall Monday - 12/24/12

I spent an incredibly relaxing weekend in my PJ's sewing - I cannot remember the last time I was able to do that. I won't show you everything I accomplished in today's post because the next set of taxes have arrived and I won't get much sewing time for the next week.

I did work on Easy Street and the pieces are piling up.

I have everything cut and just need to finish sewing the bits from last Friday's clue. Since we got snow over the weekend and Bonnie wasn't sure what to call them...I'm going to call them half snowballs.

Pepper, Midgie, Squeaky and I wish all our friends a Merry Christmas tomorrow!

yet another Easy Street update

With more parties this week than one person should be involved with (6!) there has been little time for sewing which means I have just this morning finished sewing and trimming my flying geese.

Tonight I will take my nephews to watch Polar Express at the local theater. We are supposed to wear our PJs and will receive cocoa and a bell before the show. I'm not sure who is more excited: them (age 4 and 7, both having already memorized the movie) or me for getting to spend time out with them...

Easy Street Update

I finally got started on step 4 this morning...all the bits were cut and I then I got about half of them sewn up after this picture was taken.

I have loved every single one of Bonnie's mysteries (even the ones with string blocks) but I am loving this year's for the colors and how quick it seems to be going together.

I have very few plans this weekend (can't tell you the last time that happened) and I am looking forward to doing nothing but sewing in my PJ's all weekend! I can work on Easy Street and get caught up on Grandmother's Choice now that I purchased Blockbase. Trying to redesign blocks down to 4" was just insane having to draw them up first. And then maybe I can make the new PJ's with the flannel I bought back in August. LOL. I might need them if it ever gets cold around here...

Design Wall Monday - 12/10/12

Unbelievably, I am 100% caught up with Easy Street!! Not quite sure how I managed that...

Quilt Cam was helpful in concentrating while I sliver trimmed all the flying geese. Not sure why but they were all a sliver too wide with usually perfect height. I almost got a photo of Squeaky checking out the video feed but the camera wasn't handy enough. Darn.

Man...I can't wait for Friday morning...

Almost caught up

I was able to finish cutting the 128 triangles for step 2 this morning. As you can see I used quite the variety of purples. I also included a purple with silver on it (5th from the left) which make me think of Denise! Hey this almost caught up business is fun - I'm just not getting anything else accomplished...

I received another squishy yesterday from my friend Erin for helping get her addicted to learn how to do hexies! It's a well known fact I can usually be bought with choco, even tho I told her it had been totally unnecessary.

Foiled Again

Have you ever made plans and they got foiled, really foiled? Well of course you have...

Yesterday was such gorgeous weather and I still needed to get my Christmas lights up but when I got home it was raining...I told myself I'll just do them in the morning...

While watching Bonnie's Quilt Cam last night I was able to press all my foursies (woot woot!) and get started on the seam pinwheeling. I told myself that I would start cutting the purple triangles needed for the goose units in the morning and then have something to blog about.

This morning I realized at 7:30 (I had been hitting the snooze since 6) that I had to have my car at the repair shop in a hour. I had no time to hang lights or even look at purple fabrics.

I did receive a squishy earlier this week! Lucky Denise had won a couple copies of the most recent 100 quilt block magazines and offered to send one to me! Isn't she great?! When the package finally arrived (oh, I was just being impatient) I opened the package to a lovely kitten/tea card, pattern copy of a mini quilt made with 3/8" hexies, a color wheel card from Quiltmaker and a gorgeous FQ of cat fabric (oh, how am I gonna cut into that? Maybe it will be a mini quilt backing) but no magazine. Denise feels awful that the magazine was no longer in there but I think I have deciphered what happened. The clasp is torn right off the envelope and the edges were all bent up. Someone put a huge chunk of packing tape over the end of the envelope to keep the rest in but without the usual post office label that something was received in an open or damaged condidtion. I just hope someone is making pretty blocks instead of the magazine sitting in some dead letter file somewhere...

UPDATE - The blogiverse is a wonderful place - I have already received an offer from another online friend to send me her extra copy of the 100 blocks magazine.

PS - it's currently not even half of yesterdays high of 70F (and dropping fast) while tiny snow flakes are drifting down from a gray sky the color of my foursies :)

Heat Wave on Easy Street

Why yes…I did walk to the post office this morning without a coat. I know it’s December and all but we have broken a 20+ year record with a current high of 67F.

But don’t worry, while we normally say if you don’t like the weather in Western NY to wait 5 minutes, if you can actually wait until tomorrow it will be cold and snowing again - they promised us!

Just another 15 minutes of stitching and I'll have the foursies together. Pressing and pinwheeling seams might take just a couple more minutes...

Do you know how hard it is to take an interesting picture of black on white and gray fabrics on a white table next to a white Bernina? Impossible!!

Design Wall Monday - 12/3/12

I didn't have a lot of sewing time this weekend but I still think I made some decent progress on Easy Street...

I need 24 more twosies - the strip sets are sewn so I just need a few more minutes to subcut them.

I also have all 256 triangles cut for the flying geese units and I have assembled my dark purples. I find it quite strange that purple is one of my fav colors and I really don't have many purple fabrics...I need to remedy that problem!

Easy Street Guessing Game
Last Thursday I posted a guessing game on my blog. Viewers were supposed to guess how many twosies I had already trimmed based on the photo. I gave a little clue that I had talked about my counting "technique" before and here is is again - I use the thimbles and buttons to count. After I count 5 subcuts I lay a thimble on it's side on the cutting board or after 10 I stand up the thimble. After I get to 100, I take away the thimbles and put out a button. Therefore, I had already cut 172 twosies when the photo was taken.

The closest guesser without any clues was ANudge with a guess of 192!! Unfortunatley, no one guessed without clues as to how to guess...

Yard Sale
Don't forget I have some yard sale items on my blog. I didn't have time to update the list of items this weekend but I think Bonnie said there will be a collective/online yard sale next Saturday so I'll definitely get the list updated by then...

Easy guessing game

I know I still owe a little gifty in the mail for someone but I thought today's photo might be fun for another guessing game... I have blogged about this technique before but it's been a while and I did add a new little twist recently.

Last night while watching Bonnie's Quilt Cam, I worked on cutting twosies and making more strip sets.

Can you guess, from the photo, how many twosies I have cut already? Game ends Monday, 12/3/12.

Closest guesser gets 5 FQ length strips of black on white fabric.
A perfect guess will get 10 FQ length black on white strips.
Good Luck!

Starting down Easy Street

While I wait for my favorite piecing thread to arrive in the mail I decided to cut strips for Bonnie's 2012 mystery quilt - Easy Street.

My grey is a bit on the green side but I love it anyway.

And it appears I have plenty of black on white prints. I haven't used these (or the other box of white on black) in years and years so I don't know why I have so many. Let's just say I am thrilled at the prospect of using up a few of them.